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Duke-NUS spearheads innovative research collaboration with industry leaders and investors

The speakers at the “Catalysing Innovation at Duke-NUS” networking event all agreed that to go “beyond the paper” and translate innovations into interventions that benefit society, collaboration between academia, industry and healthcare partners is essential. The event, organised by the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, gathered researchers, industry experts and investors to explore how to accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries into meaningful new treatments, diagnostic tests and improved patient care.

The call for researchers to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset was the rallying call made by Professor Patrick Tan, Senior Vice-Dean for Research at Duke-NUS, as he addressed the approximately 100-strong audience gathered in the School’s Amphitheatre on 22 October 2024. 

Encouraging industry experts and investors to partner with researchers to bring their work to society, Prof Tan highlighted that this involves more than money on the table: “We need to think strategically about navigating discoveries through the innovation process and mastering the essential skills of entrepreneurship.”

He added that it is not just the successes but also the failures that offer valuable lessons in navigating this process.

In line with the theme of the evening, the event spotlighted the School’s LIVE Ventures incubation programme, launched in July 2024, which aims to become a an innovation nexus, connecting scientists with investors and seasoned entrepreneurs. Addressing the audience, Dr Rainny Xie, Head of LIVE Ventures, summed up the programme’s aim as: igniting innovation, streamlining tech transfer and nurturing high-potential spinoffs. 

Demonstrating this spirit of bringing research beyond papers, researchers across scientific domains showcased their entrepreneurial side as they pitched their projects to current and potential partners such as Johnson & Johnson Innovation, A*STAR, SingHealth, 65LAB and the National Health Innovation Centre.

Among the speakers was Associate Professor Lena Ho from Duke-NUS’ Cardiovascular & Metabolic Disorders programme, whose research on curating novel targets for inflammatory diseases became LIVE Ventures’ pilot project following the programme’s launch.  

She was joined by three colleagues whose projects are currently in the pre-incubation stage at LIVE Ventures. They were Professor Enrico Petretto, director of the Centre for Computational Biology at Duke-NUS, who presented on a systems-genetics platform for target and drug discovery; adjunct Senior Research Fellow Dr Matae Ahn (Class of 2022) from the School’s Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme, whose interest is studying bats’ unique biology; and Associate Professor Liu Nan from the School’s Centre for Quantitative Medicine and the Duke-NUS AI + Medical Sciences Initiative, who led the development of a framework for fair and accurate artificial intelligence (AI) applications in healthcare.

During a lively discussion, speakers explored how AI might expedite research commercialisation and the role of researcher as entrepreneur.

The audience also had the chance to hear from LIVE Ventures Mentor-in-Residence Professor Steven Myint, who emphasised the importance of bringing scientific research to society during his keynote address: “It’s not just getting to the market, it’s getting to the patients.”

Before the audience was invited to mingle and network, Associate Professor Christopher Laing, Vice-Dean for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, reflected on the theme of the evening’s discussions that called for collaborations to bring research “beyond the paper” to patients: “Your presence here today is a testament to our shared vision in Singapore’s life sciences ecosystem.”